


Her Walls Around Me

by jj112



Series: Are You In the Mood? If So, How Long, and For Who? [1]
Category: Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Character Study, Emotions, F/M, Light Angst, Multi, Pregnancy Kink, Smut, This was supposed to be shameless smut, Werewolves, but like only a scooch, but then i started listening to music, emotional tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jj112/pseuds/jj112
Summary: How do our shared histories influence our present? How do we move forward from who we were in the past? Do we even try?The tension building between Mercy and Samuel snaps.
Relationships: Adam Hauptman/Mercy Thompson, Samuel Cornick/Mercy Thompson
Series: Are You In the Mood? If So, How Long, and For Who? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084835
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Her Walls Around Me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Hozier's "Work Song" because I know who I am.
> 
> "Boys, when my baby found me  
> I was three days on a drunken sin  
> I woke with her walls around me  
> Nothin' in her room but an empty crib"

Trying to stave off the pheromones of two dominant werewolves, one the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, was going to do Mercy in. Samuel was all over her house, Adam just across the field, both of them in her peripheral vision all the time. She knew that pheromones were strong, but the pissing contest of who could mark her the most was getting to be suffocating. Literally. 

She walked into her trailer and Samuel’s scent there about smacked her in the face, enveloping her as she dropped her keys on the counter. All she wanted was to take a shower and finish getting the grease out from under her nails. And yet, here she was, hunched over in the kitchen trying to take a full breath without feeling the rush of arousal. His scent had been getting stronger lately, and Mercy thought she knew why. It was because he could feel her indecision. Maybe he didn’t know it consciously, but his wolf knew. His wolf was afraid of losing what he’d decided was his mate, so the pheromones poured out. As if simply by overwhelming her olfactory sense, Samuel could make Mercy forget about the other wolf.

Which, as Mercy breathed in, would be a hard sell because even in her trailer she could smell Adam. It should be difficult, impossible even - his house was acres away across the field - and yet she still could feel his scent caress her just as surely as she felt Samuel’s. She pulled herself upright and gave herself a shake. A shower would make this feeling of submission go away, wash away everything until only her scent remained. 

The water of her shower stayed hotter for longer now, which was a perk of her new roommate. Having lived for many years (who really knew how many, Mercy thought she had, but now wasn’t so sure), Samuel was a bit of a priss now when it came to certain creature comforts. The extra large water heater was one of his first purchases as Mercy’s roommate, accompanied with a “Mercy, I don’t know how you lived like this for so long, good god.” The words seemed harsh, but the soft, teasing way he said them had made her insides curl...

No, no - she had gotten in the shower because she wanted to stop thinking about the two attractive men who were vying for her attention. But their scents mingled in the humid air of the bathroom, becoming even more potent than before. Mercy tilted her head forward, bracing her arms against the tile of the shower wall. She willed the low-level arousal that she existed in while at home to simmer down, but her mind had other plans. 

As if independent from her body, her hands, cold from the tile, moved to slide down her body, caressing her breasts as they moved, tweaking her nipples the way she thought one of the men might, which one, she didn’t know. Before she could cup her folds in her hand, continue exploring herself the way they might, she came to her senses. The shower might have more hot water than usual but she knew better than to waste it. She was being silly. Mercedes Athena Thompson was a lot of things - impulsive, sarcastic, occasionally smart, often stupid - but she was never  _ silly _ . It was just all the damn pheromones wafting around.

The pheromones are what she was also blaming when she realized she hadn’t brought any clean clothes into the bathroom, just her towel. She had made it a habit to bring her clothes with her to the bathroom now that she was living with Samuel, a courtesy he did not extend to her. He liked to waltz out with his towel slung low on his hips, daring her to look. She never did, even after she knew he couldn’t see her. He would feel her watching him, appreciating him, and she hadn’t wanted to give him the satisfaction. 

And while the hot water had been upgraded with her new roommate, her towels had not. The clean one she had grabbed from the pile was really a hair towel, the green color faded and spotted with bleach. It gaped open in the front as she tried to cover herself. Her room was on the other side of the trailer, and as she wracked her brain, she couldn’t seem to come up with Samuel’s work schedule. She had to chance it. 

She held the towel to her front as she walked, careful of the windows. But whatever luck Mercy was working with (bucketloads or none, depending on the day) ran out, as the door opened right as she was crossing. 

“Hey, Mercy, what do you want for dinner? I was thinking I could make us…” Samuel started addressing the house. Whatever he had been thinking for dinner died on his lips as he caught sight of Mercy, who had frozen where she stood. The door swung shut. 

Samuel blinked, once, twice. Mercy’s pulse ratcheted up. The thudding in her ears was all she could hear as Samuel began stalking towards her. It was moments like this, moments his agile grace as applied to his human form made him look utterly inhuman that she knew the man before her was not a man, not really. He was a predator, that much she could see in his gaze. His eyes were the icy white-blue of his wolf, and were full of heat despite their color.

She should run, should retreat to her room and bolt the door until both of them came to their senses. But she couldn’t. The air grew thicker, the atmosphere charged. If they touched, Mercy was sure she would see electricity crackle in the air. 

Finally, Samuel stood in front of her. It probably took seconds, but it felt like hours. Neither of them dared breathe, staring at the other. If Mercy were smarter, she would know not to look at the more dominant wolf. The dynamics dictated that she look away, that she submit. Especially with those eyes, his wolf’s eyes looking at her, Mercy heard the call in her gut to look away. But she’d always been stubborn. Regardless of what the pack said she should do, she often found a way to ignore it. Mostly by directly ignoring it. And Samuel wasn’t pack, anyhow. Neither was she, despite what Adam wanted. But thinking of Adam felt wrong, with Samuel right here, in front of her.

Samuel was the one who broke their staredown. He tilted his head, the space between them diminishing as he ran his nose along the length of her neck, not touching, just inhaling. 

“Oh Mercy, you’ve been so careful, haven’t you?” His voice was a purr. No. A growl, coming up from the back of his throat, instinctual.

It had been years since they had been this open with each other. Shifters have a tendency towards prudence when it comes to modesty - why ruin clothes during the shift when you could just get comfortable with your body? - but still. The last time Samuel had seen her like  _ this  _ had been fifteen years prior, back when she was ready to run away with him. There had been rushed, stolen moments. He’d been oddly old-fashioned about it, blushing every time she had stripped her clothes off. She’d been much more brash as a sixteen-year-old. 

There was nothing old-fashioned about now. Mercy was sure, if she looked down, the inch of air between them would be on fire. The scent of Samuel’s lust was overwhelming. It smelled like the frosty pine air of Montana and something sweet and metallic with an undercurrent of masculine heat. She shuddered to take a breath in, growing warm under his gaze. His hands came up, so gentle, so careful in contrast to his arousal, the smell of which only grew more powerful with each calculated move. His hands grasped hers, unfurling her fingers so her towel, which she had clutched uselessly to her chest as soon as the door had opened, dropped to the floor in a heap. 

Mercy was still rooted to the spot as Samuel sank to his knees in front of her. She felt every caress of his eyes as his stare traveled down her body. It struck her, the change in their positions. She was above him here, she was looking down at him and it all clicked into place. Samuel was submitting himself to her, to her heart, if she still wanted him. 

She barely recognized her own voice as she finally exhaled. “Sam,” she breathed, and Sam’s pupils dilated, the black of his lust pushing out the white of his wolf. He leaned forward, breaching the last self-constructed barrier between them and pressed a kiss - gentle, close-mouthed - to the coyote print tattooed under her belly button before resting his forehead against her stomach.

“You didn’t have this last time,” Sam said, his voice as quiet as hers had been. As if speaking any louder would break this moment they found themselves in. 

“I was younger then,” Mercy answered. 

“You wear your years well,” he said, the tiniest touch of strain in his voice, the edges of his words starting to curl with Welsh timbre. He was overwhelmed, Mercy realized. The accent only came back then. Her skin got hotter, if that was even possible, with that knowledge.

“What’s it like?” she found herself asking. Hoping he would understand what she meant. Werewolves are untouched by time. Once they are turned, they become apart from the world, existing alongside it as opposed to with it. What was fifteen years when your life was essentially endless? While she had grown and become more of herself in the intervening years, Sam was much the same. Or maybe he was different in all the ways that mattered, and she simply hadn’t seen it. Once, she thought that Sam was just another part of her own soul. But there was something shuttered about him now, a piece she wasn’t privy to. Maybe it was supposed to be this way.

He was silent for a moment. Before he answered, he ran his hands up her thighs, feeling the ropey muscle there. Mercy shuddered. “Loud, and quiet.”

She thought she understood. 

“You make me quiet, Mercedes Thompson.” Her full name caught her attention, as if it wasn’t all already focused on a single point in space. She looked down at him, and he stared back up at her. 

Then he pressed another gentle kiss - still close-mouthed, slow, as if to give her a chance to stop him, stop  _ them _ \- to her hip bone. The tension, worn as fine as old bone china, shattered. Mercy dragged Sam up her body, sank her hands into his flaxen hair, and brought her mouth to his neck to kiss the pulse point beating in time with her own.

He responded in kind, hooking his hands under her rump, hoisting her up. She wrapped her legs around his slim waist as he steered them towards his room. If his smell was all over their house, Mercy was somehow unprepared for his room. The concentration of just the scent of him, of  _ Sam _ , his true essence, bowled her over. 

He placed her gently on his bed, which was unmade in a direct contrast to his tidy personality. She liked that she knew that now. She had never been in his bedroom, before.

She leaned back on her elbows, and Sam just looked at her. She thought she had felt naked before, but now she wasn’t so sure he couldn’t see her soul, couldn’t see the conflict she had at the very core of her. 

If Mercy was feeling more like herself, she would say something snarky, like “you’re overdressed,” or “you’re awfully far away” or something else like that. But the desire she could see in Sam’s face wouldn’t let her. For all that she was unclothed, Sam was really the naked one between the two of them. Every desire, even the deepest, most selfish ones showed on his face as he raked his gaze over her body. She registered where it lingered, over her belly, her breasts. She knew - having been told by his father, no less - of his original intentions with her. She wondered if he was imagining what she would look like if she were pregnant with his child, what the swell of her stomach would be? 

He didn’t break eye contact with her as he took off his clothes. He removed them unhurriedly, carrying himself with the same ease that most werewolves did. His half-hard cock and eyes black with desire were the only give-aways of where this encounter was moving. The lines of his body relaxed even more once he was as bare as she was. 

Mercy didn’t move as Sam approached. She was lying near the edge of the bed, her hips inches away, her legs hanging. Sam kneeled again, between her thighs, his jaw working as he took her in. It felt like he had reached in and cracked her heart open. 

It had never been like this, before. They had never taken time like this. Before it was fumbling like they were teenagers. She actually had been, and on Sam’s part it might have been intoxicating, probably, the remembrance of first times. They had never actually made love, with Sam being sweetly old-fashioned about it, as he could be at odd moments. He had whispered to her once, before, sucking his fingers clean of her cum, her limbs loose and sated in the way only an orgasm can make you, that he wanted to make an honest woman of her before they gave themselves to each other in that way. Mercy didn’t have any pretensions now. She wasn’t trying to impress Sam, nor was he her. She didn’t need him to make an honest woman of her.

Sam laughed, deep in his throat. Mercy realized that she had said this last part out loud, too wrapped up in her memories that she wasn’t watching her mouth run itself wild. 

“I’ll still offer it,” he whispered against her thighs, nuzzling along the length of them. Had he always been like this? So heartbreakingly earnest? Or did she only see it now? How could she have ever thought she knew the whole of him?

She wanted to answer but he cut off her thinking with a quick, open-mouthed kiss to her cunt, just enough to shut her up. 

“Mercy,” he said, pulling his face away slowly, the puff of air from her name washing over her core. His arms had come up around her thighs, one forearm banded across her stomach, holding her open for him. 

There was a lot of weight in the way he said her name. Like instead of  _ Mercy _ , he was actually saying  _ don’t leave me this time,  _ or  _ let me have this, please _ , or  _ if I only get this once...  _

So she didn’t say anything else. She just raised a hand to run against his jaw, to feel the muscle there, at the hinge, tilting his head so he would look at her. This time, even with Sam kneeling before her, she could feel herself submitting to his gaze. It hit her like a wave, the want coming off him, the desire to claim her as his forever, in front of everyone who mattered. The sneaky terrible voice in her head who had been quiet up to this point whispered  _ in front of Adam _ , but she hoped the conflict she felt like a knife in her gut wasn’t showing on her face. 

If Sam’s growl was any indication, he still had caught the scent of it. “If I can’t get your mind to stop thinking about…” he trailed off, his eyes piercing hers. He didn’t need to say it. The moment stretched. “Then I’m not doing a very good job here,” he said, finally, his jaw tight with possessiveness. Mercy’s breath hitched in her throat at that. She had known that Sam was more dominant than Adam - he was the son of the Marrok! - but he was so mild most of the time, you could push it to the back of your mind. Now it was at the front. The desire to dominate her, to make her his, rolled off of Sam, unmistakable as anything other than the need to  _ own  _ her, to  _ possess  _ her. 

Mercy couldn’t break the eye contact between the two of them as Sam lowered his head back down to her cunt. He kissed her there again, slow, unblinking, as his hot breath sparked the fire within her. Unconsciously, she made to roll her hips to put his mouth back in contact with where she needed him most, but the bastard was a werewolf, and the arm around her waist was like an iron bar keeping her in place. She wouldn’t be moving at all unless he wanted her to from this point forward. 

“Such an impatient little coyote,” he purred, pressing the lightest kisses against the skin around her center, occasionally drifting up to stare at the paw print tattoo with an odd mix of desire and an emotion Mercy couldn’t decipher, not from this Sam. 

Even without him touching her where she wanted him to, she grew hotter, the coil inside of her winding tighter as he continued to touch her. Finally, he took pity on her as he began to smell her desperation, sweat collecting in the baby hairs at her temples. 

“Sam,” she whined, barely recognizing her own voice with how needy and fucked out she sounded. 

He murmured something in what sounded like Welsh, something so warm and filled with love Mercy had to close her eyes for a minute. She couldn’t make eye contact with him when he sounded like that, not if she wanted to protect herself. Her armor was already so cracked. 

The first slide of his fingers against her was so excellent she almost came on the spot. She was so wet, it was obscene. She barely needed any coaxing before he could slide one, two, three fingers inside of her, crooking them just right. He hadn’t forgotten how she liked it, the way she liked to be teased, before, being brought higher and higher until she finally snapped. Something about the fact that in Sam’s unending life, one where he had had partners and wives and lovers and families before her, that he still remembered how she liked to be touched made a small part of her break inside.

_ You make me quiet, Mercedes Thompson _ .

With his fingers inside of her and his mouth pressing hot, wet kisses against her hip bones, Mercy fell over the edge, the warmth of coming spreading out from her core to her fingertips and back. 

When her hearing came back to normal, the whispered sweet nothings, in English now, that he was pressing into her belly and breasts as he dragged his way up her body rang out like a shot in the dark. 

_ Mine _ , he whispered. Shifter hearing is excellent, and Sam knew that. He wanted her to hear him, to hear what he thought. To know how he felt, about her. 

He lifted her gently, moved her properly up onto the bed, then covered her body with his own. His cock slid across her belly, leaving behind a trail of his arousal. He propped his body above hers, their noses touching as he looked down at her. For as close as they were, for as much as Mercy thought she knew about Sam, the memories they shared didn’t include this particular act. It wasn’t as if Mercy was some blushing virgin, and she knew that Samuel had fathered children in the past. But there was something heart-crushingly intimate about the position they found themselves in here. 

Mercy had no idea how long they laid there, just staring at each other. Sam made no move to enter her, but he wasn’t cooling off, if the heat of his hard cock against her was any indication. That inscrutable look was on his face again, but mixed with something like uncertainty as he fought with something internally. Mercy finally moved, raising a hand to run through his hair. 

“Can I…” he bit out. Mercy waited, stroking his hair softly. Something about that movement seemed to steady him enough to ask. “Can we make love without a condom? I want to feel you.” 

Mercy knew she was on birth control. She’d gotten on it as soon as Sam had started living with her, wanting to be prepared as she began unraveling the conundrum of her and Sam and Adam. With every partner before, she’d requested a condom even if she was on the pill. She couldn’t help it - she was the daughter of a teen mother. And while she was far away from her teenage years, she still wasn’t exactly prepared to have a kid. But for half a second, she could picture a little brown baby with her proud nose and black hair and Sam’s soft mouth, and her heart clenched. 

She reached down and grasped his cock, running the head against her folds, hoping that that answered his question. But he grabbed her hand, making her let go and holding it down lightly but firmly above her head. He ducked his head, running his nose along the shell of her ear before biting down lightly.

“Mercy, I need you to say it. I want… I need to hear you -” 

She cut him off by turning and licking a stripe up his neck, and his breath stuttered. Her mouth caressed his ear.

“Yes, Samuel, I want you to make love to me, just like this. Just as we are.”

He turned his head, making eye contact with her. The wave of dominance that rolled over her as he stared her down, the white ring of his wolf’s eyes swallowed in the black took her breath away.

“Say it again,” he growled. 

“I want you to make love to me, just as we are.” Mercy said, submission to his desires - as much as they were also hers - coloring her answer this time. She could see when her submission hit him. 

Sam raised himself up on his arms with her instruction, sliding himself against her folds again, spreading the arousal from her first orgasm onto his shaft. He groaned, dropping his head to her shoulder as she grabbed onto his sides, tipping her head back, ready. He was about to enter her when he stopped, the head of his cock resting right at her entrance. Mercy nearly screamed with want.

“Mercy, wait -”

“Sam, I swear to  _ God _ , if you don’t start fucking me-”

He swatted her side. “Language, my love!”

She rolled her eyes, and the fondness in his ramped up at her impatience. She wasn’t exactly used to being denied like this, and she didn’t know why the denial only made her burn hotter, want him more. 

With his eyes open, the fond look giving way to a searching one, Sam leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. For all they had just done, with gentle, insistent pressure on her lips, this was the first kiss he had yet given her. Then he stretched her open, each thrust achingly slow, with pressure just as gentle. She could feel her body relaxing, accommodating his presence as he raised a hand to her cheek, his fingers pressing against her skull. When he was so deep, it was like they were one person, she realized this was why they could never have done this when she was sixteen. She would have been his, forever, would have taken out her heart and given it to him without a second thought. 

He started to speed up, hooking one of her knees around his elbow, opening her up for him. This new angle had her feeling him in her toes.

“God, Mercy -” he bit out, his voice raw. His eyes were closed but she was sure if she could see them, there would be even less humanity left than earlier.

“I know, I know,” she babbled, any attempt at higher rational thought impossible as he spread her open. All she could think about was Sam’s smell, engulfing her completely, seeping into her pores, the very core of her being. He smelled like home, like safety, like protection, like he  _ belonged _ to her. She wanted him to be  _ hers _ . She wanted to be  _ his _ . 

Like he could read her mind, she heard him start to whisper the same word he had said earlier, each thrust punctuated with an exhaled  _ mine.  _ She would be lying if she said it wasn’t those whispers that had her so close to coming so quickly. But by his speed and erratic breathing, Sam wasn’t far off either. 

As if he could sense her needing more, he leaned further forward, opening her up even more to him. She ran her hands up his body, pulling him down for a kiss. He used one hand to cradle her face again, holding her with such tenderness that Mercy though her heart would burst. 

His voice was harsh compared to the kiss he had just given her. “I want you to come for me, Mercy. How do I make you come for me?” 

Mercy nearly choked at that statement, and another wave of desire swept over her, as if she wasn’t already turned on enough. But she couldn’t even string together a coherent thought, so Sam took some initiative and reached between them with his free hand, delicately rubbing against her clit. He was so tender like this, but rough at the same time, so different from the Samuel that everyone else saw. Even though they had been together before, they had never been together like this. She’d only ever been with Samuel, but this was  _ Sam _ . Something about that subtle distinction brought a spark of pleasure through her, that she got to hold this secret close to her chest. It turned into a wildfire as Sam kept thrusting, where he hit this place inside of her that made her sing.

She didn’t even realize she was crying out until Sam had to kiss her to stop the noise.

He tore his mouth away from her, panting. His eyes were wild with desire as he looked at her, and Mercy wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing when he did. She wasn’t doing a good job hiding her secrets right now. But something in her face must have meant something to Sam, because his thrusts began to stutter.

“ _ Fy anwylaf _ ,” Sam choked out, his head falling to the crook of her shoulder. Mercy could feel him surge forward, one last solid thrust before the pulse of warmth as he came inside of her. 

He stayed still for a moment, breathing her in, before reaching under her to pull her closer to him. He tilted her hips until her back rested against his thighs as he kneeled on his bed, still inside of her. He draped his body over her then, seemingly satisfied now, resting his head, hair matted with sweat, against her chest. Mercy relaxed into her new position, feeling blissed out, drunk on the sweet murmurs Sam was kissing into her chest. Some deeper, quiet part of her brain whispered of the old wives' tale of keeping your hips tilted to encourage pregnancy.

She still couldn't find it in herself to move.

*******

Across the field, the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack picked glass out of the palm of his hand. The cup he shattered when he heard a certain woman's hoarse shout of pleasure laid forgotten on the kitchen counter. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This obviously doesn’t take place anywhere in the books, but let’s say that it occurred some time in Blood Bound? Or in between Blood Bound and Iron Kissed?? Idk it’s just smut. Or is it? Who knows!
> 
> This is part one of three. Who knows when they'll appear? Least of all me. However, I'm starting 2021 the way I want to continue it - writing stuff.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
